As more consumers forego sardined
malls for the convenience of online shopping, total
Internet-related sales are forecast to jump 19.1% to
$174.5 billion in 2007, excluding travel, according to
the latest "State of Retailing Online 2007" report by
Forrester Research.
The addition of the fifth P
notwithstanding, price continues to play a critical role
in every product managers marketing mix. No surprise
then - some of the largest e-retailers are looking at
pricing as a potential strategic opportunity. For
immediate competitive response, e-retailers are
increasingly dissecting the elements that go into
determining competitive online prices and compelling
promotions.
In June 2007, Internet Retailer
publisher Jack Love hosted the world's largest conference in e-retailing at the San Jose
Convention
Center.
More than 4,000
online merchants from innumerable retail channels,
catalog firms, and web-only merchants were a part of
this event and shared ideas and experiences on the
one thing they have in common: web-based
retailing.
Joseph Ryan, US / EMEA
eCommerce Director
represented eClerx at
the conference.
Representatives from eClerx
attended and addressed at the Internet Retailer
conference. The key points they discussed -
An 'interactive pricing' model that
leverages small changes in pricing strategy to deliver
huge improvements in bottom line
numbers
Optimal price moves on the back of
real-time capture of pricing
information
Best practices that can be used to
sell offerings against competitor's products using
non-price advantages
Opportunistic management of
public domain data for effective decision making, price, and catalog management
Joseph
Ryan, US / EMEA eCommerce Director,
eClerx reviewed what e-retailers can do to make sure they are getting the
right price for their merchandise, how to conduct price research, and how
pricing managers can apply the right analysis to aggregated data.
He also discussed how the best
e-retailers play the pricing game less often whilst
keeping up with competitors' price moves, and how the
use of other factors, such as customer service and product
selection, help lift profitability.
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